Murder of Ashling Murphy

Ashling Murphy was a 23-year-old primary school teacher, traditional Irish musician, and camogie player from Blue Ball, County Offaly. She had recently begun a full-time teaching post at Scoil Naomh Colmcille in Durrow. On 12 January 2022, after finishing work, Murphy drove to a car park near the Grand Canal in Tullamore and set out on a walk along the towpath. Geolocation data from her phone and fitness tracker traced her east to Digby Bridge and back before her movement stopped abruptly. Two passing joggers heard sounds from an adjacent ditch, saw a man crouched over a woman, and ran for help. Murphy was found fatally injured in the ditch a short time later. A postmortem examination found she had been stabbed 11 times in the neck and died of cardio-respiratory arrest from acute blood loss.

Gardaí, led by Detective Superintendent Pat O'Callaghan and Detective Inspector Brian Farrell, launched a large investigation from Tullamore Garda Station, reviewing tens of thousands of hours of CCTV footage and forensic evidence including a mountain bike found near the towpath. A man detained shortly after the killing was released without charge the next day. On 13 January, Gardaí investigating an unrelated Dublin report encountered Jozef Puška, a Slovak national living near Tullamore, with self-inflicted stab wounds and inconsistent accounts of his movements. Officers linked him to the Tullamore area, and in a hospital interview on 14 January he confessed to killing Murphy. Forensic testing matched a fingerprint on a recovered bicycle to Puška and found his DNA under Murphy's fingernails. He was discharged from hospital and arrested on 18 January, then charged with her murder the next day.

Puška's trial opened at the Central Criminal Court on 16 October 2023. He pleaded not guilty, testifying that an unidentified masked man had attacked them both; prosecutors said this was contradicted by CCTV, forensic, and eyewitness evidence. On 9 November 2023, a jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict after roughly two hours of deliberation. On 17 November 2023, Mr. Justice Tony Hunt sentenced Puška to mandatory life imprisonment; he will be eligible for parole after 12 years. No motive was proven at trial; Gardaí said Puška had messaged women via dating apps beforehand and may have targeted her for sexual assault. Puška was granted legal aid to appeal his conviction in April 2024; the appeal was delayed and rescheduled to begin 15 July 2026.

In June 2023, Gardaí arrested Puška's wife, his two brothers, and their wives on charges connected to the murder investigation. At a separate trial that opened in May 2025, a jury convicted his brothers, Marek Puška and Ľubomír Puška Jr., of withholding information, and their wives, Jozefína Grundzová and Viera Gažiová, of destroying evidence by burning Puška's bloodstained clothing; his wife, Lucia Ištóková, had pleaded guilty to withholding information. In October 2025, the court sentenced Marek Puška and Ľubomír Puška Jr. to 30 months' imprisonment, Gažiová to 24 months, Grundzová to 21 months, and Ištóková to 20 months, citing mitigating circumstances.

Murphy's death prompted vigils nationwide and abroad and renewed public debate over violence against women; the Irish government accelerated funding for a national strategy on domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence. Her family established a memorial fund supporting traditional Irish arts, and Mary Immaculate College and the Camogie Association created scholarships and trophies in her name. A permanent memorial stands at the site of her death in Tullamore. Murphy's boyfriend, Ryan Casey, sued the BBC for defamation over comments about his victim impact statement in a 2023 broadcast; the case was settled out of court in July 2025.